May 7-9, 2003

CheckWorks attended BAI’s 2003 TransPay Conference in New Orleans, the leading show for bank operations executives and exhibiting vendors in the item processing environment. This year, CheckWorks was excited to find that check imaging and truncation technology was at the forefront of vendor and banker priorities alike.

We observed that many financial institutions were not ready yet for the passage of Check 21; however, most did have a program in place to make preparations. Since TransPay, we have had many inquiries about our imaging and truncation support offerings that lead us to believe the there is still much work to be done before the implementation of this legislation.

A few subjects seemed to garner the most interest:
  • Branch Truncation. Many banks see the reengineering of the teller environment as an opportunity to implement other technological innovations as well, the first being to capture images of items at the branch. We believe this trend will go into full swing, with the passage of Check 21, especially for larger banks. Check 21 will spread new processing efficiencies throughout the flow of check processing for those banks willing to examine all of the new efficiencies available. Banks will finally find the ROI needed to implement new teller line systems.
  • Data Mining. Not only is data mining of on-us items of interest, but banks were also of interested in the opportunity of mining image data captured from transit items. With the current laws supporting the bank’s capture and use of any information on the check not relative to an account holder, new marketing strategies will be developed to use transit check information.
  • IBM’s new Image CPCS.
  • Image Enablement of Day 2 Operations. This has been a struggle for financial institutions trying to realize full image exchange.
  • Check 21 and Re-crediting. While most banks are in favor of Check 21, they have not cared for the part of the legislation involving expedited re-crediting.
  • Image Replacement Documents (IRDs). These are just beginning to hit the discussion tables, but they promise to become a much bigger issue.